BOOK SUMMARY 12 Maximize Your Potential
·
Summary written by: Dianne Coppola
"Your ability to realize your potential will depend
upon your willingness to hone your skills, to take bold risks, and to put your
ego on the line in pursuit of something greater."
- Maximize Your Potential, page 18
Maximize
Your Potential, a compilation of 21 essays edited by
Jocelyn Glei, is a hefty treasure chest filled with dozens of glittering golden
eggs and actionable GEMs, and is an absolute delight to read. The book is a
collection of insights and lessons on how to “develop your talents and craft an
incredible career” and does not disappoint!
Glei
has organized the short essays around four areas deemed essential to long-term
career success:
·
Identifying and creating new opportunities
·
Developing expertise over time
·
Cultivating collaborative relationships
·
Learning to take risks
Each
section ends with a ‘Key Takeaways’ summary which is truly inspirational and
action-oriented. I’ve picked three of my favourites to showcase here and you
will find dozens more should you decide to read the book.
The Golden Egg
Embrace ‘BETA’ Mode
"Keeping
yourself in ‘permanent beta’ makes you acknowledge that you have bugs, that
there’s more testing to do on yourself, and that you will continue to adapt and
evolve."- Maximize Your Potential, page 38
As a
self-described ‘lifelong learner’, I like to think I’m doing fairly well living
in permanent BETA mode. I constantly seek out books, videos, courses, blogs and
other tools to quench my thirst for knowledge and hone my skillset. I readily
acknowledge that I am a ‘work-in-progress’ and always will be.
Where
I often fall short with the BETA mindset is in my business. My
perfectionist/attention-to-detail tendencies frequently override my common
sense and I spend inordinate amounts of time ‘sweating the small stuff’ despite
Richard Carlson’s sage advice not to! I attribute this to a desire to minimize
failure, protect my credibility and presumably only take calculated risks. I’ve
read enough business books to know intellectually that this is not as helpful as
I believe. Now if only I could commit to following through behaviourally!
On
further reflection, it occurs to me that I have begun to adopt a BETA
philosophy at work. My website wasn’t perfect when I launched it (still isn’t)
however it is good enough. My workshops contain great content and are
well-received by participants even though I constantly identify things that
could be tweaked. I’ve joined a number of online communities yet haven’t
delineated an overall social media strategy nor developed a content calendar.
Hmmmm! Embracing permanent BETA mode at work is not as reckless as I once
imagined. Your turn. How are you embracing BETA mode?
Gem #1
Play Twenty Questions
"Always
be asking ‘What’s next?’ If you’re not asking questions, you’re not going to find
answers."- Maximize Your Potential, page 58
Actually,
as a professional facilitator, I’m pretty good at asking others thought
provoking questions and encouraging people to go beyond their initial response
– to dig deeper. The reason I chose this as a noteworthy GEM was the
realization that I don’t always take the time to
fully answer the multitude of questions that would lead to deeper
insights and help me make more effective, sustainable decisions.
Do I
want to grow my expertise and build an incredible career? In what areas? Why?
What opportunities are available? Do I have the time, energy and resources to
pursue those opportunities? What would I consider to be a ‘bold risk’? What’s
preventing me from being bold and taking those larger leaps of faith?
These
are all great questions in need of answering. Which then led to my decision to
dedicate more time to asking and answering questions and my second noteworthy
GEM.
Gem #2
Automate for Success
"By
changing your habits, you reprogram the behaviours that control most of your
life and ultimately determine your success."- Maximize Your Potential, page 110
Once
you are comfortable being in permanent BETA mode and have the answers to your
most critical questions, the next commitment you need to make is to
periodically reboot your system and invest in automation. This is where Scott
Young’s essay, Reprogramming Your Daily Habits hit home for
me. Young didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t know already as much as
package it in a way that made the proverbial light bulb in my brain click on.
Young
asserts that many of our so-called daily ‘choices’ are really not choices but
automatic or subconscious behaviours and habits. Harnessing the power of habits
to create sustainable success reduces our need to rely solely on mental
will-power and frees up our energy for other important tasks and decisions.
Following
two key principles will increase our effectiveness in the quest to establish
positive habits – focus and consistency. Young
describes focus as working on one habit at a time while consistency means doing
the desired new behaviour regularly at the same time and in the same way. He
recommends selecting one habit to focus on each month (which gives you the
potential to adopt 12 success enhancing habits each year) and being deliberate
about execution to help ‘automate’ the behaviour.
I’ve
always liked the idea of journaling and have started one numerous times only to
eventually revert back to my non-journaling ways. I used to chalk this up to a
lack of motivation and a busy lifestyle. I now see that I was haphazard with my
execution and did not create the necessary focus and routine to automate the
habit.
So, I
took Scott’s advice and this month established a Monday evening journal time. I
use Box of Crayon’s Great Work Provocation questions to focus my writing (the
Provocation conveniently arrives in my inbox Monday mornings) as well as
questions posed by other bloggers I follow. I reflect and write Monday
evenings when I’m enjoying my tea (a long-standing habit that I rarely miss)
after my post-dinner walk with my husband. It’s still early days, however I am
feeling more confident about my success rate this time around.
I’m
also excited about the impact that establishing 12 success-oriented habits in
one year can have on my life. While I’ve heard the idea before, it somehow
seemed daunting and unrealistic. As with my journaling, I had good intentions
and lackluster follow-through. Young’s simple formula for execution and
automation makes it seem far more attainable now and I have started to generate
a list of ideas for other habits I’d like to adopt. Next month I’ll probably
focus exclusively on re-introducing a weights workout to complement my cardio training
and the month after that…who knows?!
What
about you? What new habits will help you maximize your potential? What existing
(bad) habits need to be eliminated and replaced with more positive behaviours?
Pick one and think about how, where and when you can consistently focus on
executing that behaviour. Then commit to doing it for the next four weeks so it
becomes a natural part of your day (or week).
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